Gordy Whiteman shares joy of living and a lifetime of experiences
Gordy Whiteman, first poet laureate of Guilford, writes often about his family and about his town. He has lived in Guilford for his entire life, except for his college years and a stint in the U.S. Air Force. He writes about a place in time, with many of his poems focused on what life was like in the 1930s and 1940s.
Whiteman is a member and past president of The Guilford Poets Guild and is a founding member of The Connecticut Coalition of Poets Laureate. He is the author of and Home Currently he is working on a new book of poems that he’s co-authoring with his son Jason.
Born in 1929. he grew up in a large family, surrounded by people who were immersed in the arts. His mother was a poet and songwriter, his sister Wim wrote music and lyrics, his brother Tom and sister Betty have both written poetry. It was Betty, the author of three books of poetry, who encouraged Whiteman to begin writing poems of his own. Whiteman also enjoys painting. His seven children are poets, painters, sculptors, and musicians.
“The thing about poetry,” Whiteman says, is that it gets “the whole novel, the whole history, biography, love story on one page, and I get the answers I didn’t even leather-bound book carelessly thrown down, stamps strewn around; bearded kings and pensive queens with deckled edge exclaiming, “He abdicated! He abdicated!” I learn something about ownership and caring. I weigh this separation, this loss against the quiet obtained, the peace, the view of the ocean where, later tonight when the household is in slumber, the lighthouse will wink at the man-in-the-moon as he rises over Grass Island and I will dream the stuff of boyhood— kings and queens, brothers and sisters, gains and losses. know I was looking for.” He says poetry helps him think things out and that he often finds himself mentally conversing with a poet as he reads a poem. “You want a five-star evening? Read a book of poetry.”
Many in our country and the wider world are reeling in reaction to, among other things, a pandemic that has changed life in countless ways, but Whiteman has perspective gained from a lifetime of living, including experiences with war, the Great Depression, polio, and other hardships. “Any chance that I get I will bend your ear about how good, how great, it is to be alive right now,” he says.
— Ginny Lowe Connors
Mom, play Jelly Roll Morton.
Play
Or a little Scott Joplin—
Riffs and ripples, fingers a blur, auburn hair flowing, her left hand flying down to the lowest octave, back to mid-range, flashing back and forth with each beat and I would marvel at how she could play that fast and hit those chords.
Then, left hand stretched far to the right, red polished fingernails rippling down, down the white keys, she would break into our hands clapping, knees bobbing up and down.
When she slowed to a plaintive blues,
We, her eight children, would sing along with her, “…now the rain is fallin’, hear the train acallin’ hooeee…”
She would end with an arpeggio, tinkling
The highest keys, then coming down with both hands, a low rhythmic rumbling and announce, “Well, if you want music for supper I can stay here or I can get into the kitchen and the potato salad.”
II
Mom, please play
Saturday night parties at our Seaside
Avenue home. Salt breezes off the water mingling with the intoxicating fragrance of wisteria that covered one side of the house, and we, gathered in the darkness at the head of the stairs, listening to ice clinking in the whiskey drinks, Dad’s off-color jokes, then, later, Mom at the piano. We would lip-sync the words and make each other giggle with outlandish wiggles to
“…holy Moses, what a chassis…”
III
Let’s hear Sophie Tucker, Mom.
Play
When Dad left—never to return—
Mom’s music stopped. She caught the 7 AM bus to cook at Hilda’s Diner in Madison, and at 5 PM she waited table at the Estabud Tavern until midnight.
At age twelve my sister Betty became the surrogate mother of her four young siblings. I, fifteen, landed a summertime job flipping burgers on the graveyard shift at the Trilight Diner.
In the small hours, when truck traffic between
New York and Providence thinned out, I’d put Nickels in the jukebox: Tony Martin, Russ Columbo, Billy Eckstine all crooning the sad songs, lonesome songs, love gained, love lost.
IV
How about
Mom met Bart. She took five years off her age and didn’t mention the eight kids. He heard about us one by one, and by the time he had met half of us, Mom said, “His goose was already cooked.” He was a good man; hard working, steady. He didn’t have Dad’s wit nor his charisma. And, thank god, he didn’t have Dad’s fatal charm. Mom, play
(After they had been married a good number of years, Mom said to Bart, “I think I’ll apply for Social Security.” Bart said, “You can’t, you’re only 57.” Mom said, “Yes, but I think I’ll try anyway.”)